There has been and continues to be an ever increasing interest in improving the quality of our lives through changing our behavior patterns. One of the greatest areas of growth in psychology has been in practices and programs that recognize an individual's attitudes and beliefs as the major contributors to the persons satisfaction with their life. This degree of satisfaction also affects our immediate relationships with family, spouse, children, friends, employers and even casual acquaintances. An area of growing understanding has been the relationship between our conscious and subconscious beliefs and actions. Masses of clinical studies and articles have been published by major universities and private institutions over the last 50 years, as we continually better understand how the conscious and the subconscious interact. Subliminal messages are not consciously perceived yet when effectively done these messages will still have an affect on the person receiving them. Because subliminal messages bypass the conscious thought process they are not easily filtered out or as easily ignored as overt messages. This prevents the user from consciously ignoring the message and promotes the effectiveness of messages. Subliminal messages can be useful in therapeutic programs and even in self-help applications.
A major void in the field of psychology has been the lack of a method to effectively address the subconscious mind and implementing a desired and prescribed treatment program that allows clinical input and monitoring of the treatment of an individual in working on a desired behavior modification. Technologies to date have offered programs that are analogous to an individual going into a shoe store that carries shoes sized 5AAAA to 13EEE and hoping to find a pair they like that fits just by grabbing one off the shelf. One manner of aiding such efforts is by providing a device that gives the user/clinician 100% control over the wording of the actual subliminal messages and the method of delivery to the individual.
The ordinary television receiver is an ideal candidate for presentation of subliminal messages. Most individuals watch television several hours a day. This time can be advantageously employed with therapeutic guidance in an effective method of delivering subliminal (positive affirmation) messages. Unfortunately, there is no manner known in the art for advantageously using the television in an active program of subliminal therapy. Systems known in the art do not permit adaptation of fixed images to be tailored to a particular user. Prior art employs fixed messages that cannot be changed by the user and have a built-in drawback regarding the effectiveness of the message in general. They also create uneasiness in users regarding content of messages which they are unable to observe and control. Video and audio tapes with predetermined subliminal messages are known in the art, yet cannot be made in the variety to meet the needs of all persons. Any therapeutic value of such off-the-shelf preprogrammed audio or visual methodology, at best, can be considered to be only vaguely or remotely effective in producing any type of behavior modification. Additionally, most individuals have concerns about possible subversive content of subliminal messages in mass produced programs, such as those on pre-programmed audio and video cassettes and cartridge applications. This concern is typically unfounded although individuals do not like the though of exposing their minds to a methodology of programming much akin to Orwell's "Big Brother." With this invention complete control rests with the individual and the fiduciary relationship that has developed with his/her therapist.
From a therapy basis, a clinician currently has no concrete method of specifying particular areas for treatment and methodology for implementing a treatment program that utilizes subliminal suggestions. It would thus be useful to provide a manner of presenting user selectable subliminal messages during all uses of the television receiver.